Training Within Industry in the United States by Channing R. Dooley

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TRAINING WITHIN INDUSTRY IN THI3 UNI'I'gD STATICS 165 Such a staff person gets his management to remind the 1;ne organisatim from time to time that continuing results are expected. He also provides technical assistance to the lineorganisationonexactly how to use the knowledge acquired through training. Analyy's of a production problem in many instances has given a factual basis . against which the training can be measured. Often people are thought to be trained when they have been given certain information. The use of knowledge constitutes training. There must be evidence that the employee really possesses the knowledge and has skill in its use. Tlce.Planl's Overall Training Programme When this problem-solving technique is used, various training needs emcrge, several perhaps coming from every problem. Within the limits of facilities and time available, several kinds of training (especially if they meet recurring needs of different gro,ups) can be operated at the me time. In this way the quality of workers and supervisors can be improved in the specific fields where the plant needs better performance, apprentices can be prepared, staff men can be trained to give better service, and leaders can be developed. The analytical approach, amounts to this: "Do no training unless you have to, and then do only what must be done to aid production". It will cut the waste of interesting but aimless and time-consuming programmes and stimulate real training- the kind that helps the plant to get out greater quantities of higher quality products at lower cost, and in a way that both supervisors and workers like. Obviously this does not rule out some long-range plans that build better morale and understanding. THE T.W.1. APPROACH IN THE UNITED STATES' Training Within Industry was an emergency service to the nation's war contractors and essential production. Its staff was drawn from industry to give assistance to industry, and its official war history covers the time from the Fall of France to the end of World War I1 - from the summer of 1940 to the autumn of 1945. T.W.I.'s objectives were to help contractors to get out better war production faster, so that the war might be shortened, and to help industry to lower the cost of war materials. Thero is nothing new about T.W.I. programmes - they are built on accepted principles. Tho only new thing is that something was done about getting them used. T.W.I. soon learned that the This part of the article is drawn from The Training Wilhin Indus!ry Re or!, 1940-1945 (Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing 0 Ice, Washington, D.C., 1945). it
166 INTJIRNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW establishment of principles alone has practically no value in increasing production. To know what to do is not enough. It is only when people are drilled in how to do it that action results. Industry's own men collected, standardised, streamlined and developed techniques for industry itself to use, on a volunteer basis. The four programmes, job instruction, job *methods, job relations and programme development, are methods of group instruction whereby plant people learn through practice on their own current problems to use these specific four-step methods, so simple that each is ~rinted on a pockkt card. These methods resulted in 1,750,650 certifications of supervisors in 16,511 plants and unions during the war. How T.W.I. Has Worked Training Within Industry has done three things: given advice and information, trained industrial people to handle their own problems, and solved problems for plants. T.W.I.'s first year was largely spent on the "advice and inforrnation" level. It was hoped that an "eye opening" job would be enough. During that first year, T.W.I. people went into plants, made surveys to spot training needs, and mapped training programmes. But the bulk of T.w.1.'~ work was in its assigned field of service- "training industrial people to handle their own production problems through training". People have to learn to do jobs. They can learn by being trained or they can learn through mistakes. One can repair machines, repeat work, pay the accident costs, or one can train people to do work co.rrectly. In wartime, wasteful practice was against national interest. In peacetime, competition takes care of poor business management. T.W.I. trained management in what training is, and what it can do for the plant: it trained line executives and supervisors in the use of three supervisory problem-solving methods; and it trained staff men with functional responsibility for planning training in the use of a method for solving production problems through training. The "Lcns Grinder" Study. During the very first week of T.W.I.'s existence the first assignment was received. All through the summer of 1940 there had been much discussion of shortages in particular lines of skilled work. One of the most serious shortages was in lens grinders and polishers for Government arsenals and navy yards. This problem was presented to the T.W.I. directors and on 28 August 1940 they called a conference on lens grinding and precision instruments. The original in the lens-grinding field was to assist
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Training Within Industry in the United States by Channing R. Dooley

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